‘Forget enhanced pension, just give us our due’

While the state government may have claimed to enhance pension for aged, widows and disabled pensions from Rs 250 per month to Rs 500, many deserving beneficiaries have not even got a single penny from the government from the past six months.

An elderly woman touching the feet of Punjab CM Parkash Singh Badal during a function at Banda Bahadur War Memorial, Chappar Chirri, in SAS Nagar on Thursday.(Gurminder Singh/HT Photo)

While the state government may have claimed to enhance pension for aged, widows and disabled pensions from Rs 250 per month to Rs 500, many deserving beneficiaries have not even got a single penny from the government from the past six months.

As chief minister Parkash Singh Badal was distributing enhanced pension in SAS Nagar, Swarn Singh of Majri block said: “I have been waiting for my old age pension for the past six months. They (officials) told us that we would be get it today. But we were not given a single penny.”

“I’ve been running from pillar to post to get my pension for the past one year. All my pleas have fallen on deaf ears. We don’t want enhanced pension, the government should at least give us our due ” claimed Jaswinder Kaur of Seonk village.

Sudden stop

There are others who got payments initially, but then suddenly these were stopped.

“In the past one year, I’ve just got pension of two months. When I approached officials, they gave me assurance that I would get the pension. But nothing has changed,” says Harbans Singh of Sohana village.

The state government has enhanced the old age monthly pension of women aged 58 or more and men aged 65 or more, whose income was not more than Rs 2,000 from Rs 250 to Rs 500.

Similarly, monthly pension for widows or destitute women less than 58 years and unmarried women above 30 whose income is less than Rs 1,000 per month has also been increased from Rs 250 to Rs 500.